• Every card has 2 criterias, except for parasite cards:
  
  
  • "Rating" - how good the card by itself in a vacuum with some regard to its usage
    
  • "Usage" - applicability of the card in question, as in how and / or when to use it e.g. "Generic" means the card can be used in any deck, because it's effect could be generally utilised in any deck (but that alone doesn't necessarily mean that the card is good, refer to "Rating" for it), "Niche" means for the card to work for its full potential it needs help of other cards and/or specific conditions which are tough to achieve. If several options are written (Option 1 / Option 2) it means that the card can find usage in both variants
    
    Parasite cards are excluded for this rule and instead have:
    
    
  • "Annoying?" - inconvenience of progressing through the card to the next phase
  
  
• Recommended upgrades which I believe are the best for each individual card are mentioned in the card's Upgrade section
  
  
• Every card is rated on a scale of 0 to 5
  
  
• Each card has a description which provides commentary on the card
  
  
• Seldom, if I have already described a card close to another card mentioned earlier, I won't describe it in detail and simply leave a few remarks or reference the respective card instead.

The one description that I believe highly suits Rook is that he is essentially a glass cannon. Fragile by himself, but can become extremely damaging with the right cards.

Negotiation-wise, Rook is quite fun, albeit can be overwhelming at first glance and require some time to figure out. He has many viable archetypes and despite having an inconsistent argument can provide quite consistent negotiation results. His gamble cards are the most flexible and can fit essentially everywhere while various choices of coins and synergies with other cards will keep you entertained for certain

Unlike Sal, Rook's basic combat cards are overall weaker. He has many bad non-basic combat cards that are either slightly better copies of his own basic ones, or are downright unimportant. Defensive-wise Rook is also weak: his basic defense cards provide little defense, and as such he desperately needs better non-basic variants.

But, at the same time, unlike Sal, Rook has the potential of becoming the hardest-hitting Grifter in the entire game due to Overcharge (with some help from Concentration) which is easier to obtain and stack unlike Power buff on the rest of the Grifters, with another potential of easily building simple infinite-damage decks due to one of his busted debuffs.

While initially Rook on lower difficulties is not necessarily problematic to finish campaign / brawl modes on, it seems that people tend to be struggling with him somewhat as the difficulty of the game ramps up to Prestige 7, moreso than with any other Grifter in the game.



And to be fair, it isn't surprising really. Rook has a lot going on for him right off the bat:

• Unlike Sal and Smith, does not have a consistent argument
  
• Has several Negotiation mechanics, most prominent of them being Gamble
  
• Alongside said inconsistent argument, has the ability to change the argument later at various points
  
• Charging / Empty Combat mechanic
  
• Several fighting mechanics & choice options, as well as a variety of debuffs
  
• Parasite mechanic on top

But all of the above does not become as prominent of an issue up until you ramp the difficulty up.

Before getting into a Griftlands match, we need to cover the Perks that you should take with you on Prestige 7.

The following three in my opinion provide the best value out of all Perks in Griftlands, and are what I virtually use on the regular, permanently, 99.999% of the time, for the following reasons:

• Basic Training - Rook's basic cards are bad. You want to upgrade them ASAP and preferably destroy/expend, but default experience is too long for the highest Prestige difficulty. Heck, even with this you won't be able to upgrade all of your cards until the very first boss which may already give you a lot of trouble. As such, this Perk is an invaluable asset: lowers both Combat/Negotiation cards' EXP, allows you to upgrade them way, way faster than you'd normally would and personally, in my opinion, this is how Prestige 7 Griftlands should always be played.
  For Rook specifically, this perk is even more so of importance, as the Parasite cards he unavoidably gets are also considered as basic cards, and as such their Hatch requirements are also lowered by half, rounded up.
  
  
• Fast Learner - for same reasons as Basic Training, this Perk helps out upgrading your non-basic cards so you can start getting your deck to late-game ASAP. It covers every single card in the game, and has huge value for a single Perk.
  
  
• Ancient Warrior - this Perk helps you get through the early game by upgrading non-basic cards instantly once you draft them, so overall you get 4 upgraded cards, two for Combat and Negotiation. The value of this Perk is that you can start using upgraded versions of cards immediately without the need to upgrade them in combat or negotiation first, which becomes invaluable early. Some cards desperately need upgrading ASAP, others not so much, but still could utilise this Perk nonetheless. Some early-drafted cards you don't even want to start using immediately in negotiation/combat because your main early game priority is upgrading and getting rid of basic cards. Moreover, you can skip first few drafts to potentially get better cards and immediately upgrade them with this. It facilitates early game by a large margin, as the cards you upgrade instantly can serve as a hefty support for you to focus on upgrading other cards and getting through that first day boss. Truly, a Perk you cannot miss taking.

• ROOK'S COIN

Let's begin with discussing Rook's negotiation, starting with his argument. As was already mentioned, Rook doesn't have a consistent argument. However, the argument can be used multiple times in the same turn for more instances of the same effect. But the actual effect you get from said argument depends on a 50-50 random chance flip result. Moreover, there are several coins that Rook can use instead of his default one. You can get different coins on their respective days.
Here are all of them, straight up from Griftlands Wiki:



As you can see, there are a lot of options. However, the following information I'm going to tell you straight up facilitates your choices:

If a coin doesn't have defense when it flips heads, it's not worth taking.

If you want to win, the majority of the time, whenever possible, pick the coin that features the highest defense numbers. This means that your default order of picking coins is:

• Day 1 - Marsh Coin
  
• Day 2 - Bog Coin
  
• Day 3 - Turtle Coin

This isn't to say that the rest of the coin roster is bad, but unless you are specifically tailoring your deck to fit a certain coin, you will lose due to low Composure numbers. Since we want consistency, prioritise coins that feature more defense.
The exception to this rule are the Day 3 coins. They are all good and all feature defense, but differ in terms of effects. Tyrant's coin is great for more damage if you have Hostility cards as your primary damage source and building Dominance with that coin is easy; likewise, Chaos coin is great when you have several cards that benefit from being discarded. But primarily, you want to pick Turtle Coin, since it lets you tank tremendous damage effortlessly.

• ROOK'S NEGOTIATION

Unlike Sal, Rook's deck does not feature a card akin to "Sal's Instincts". This means he doesn't necessarily focus on one set of cards or the other, Hostility or Diplomacy, in theory allowing for a mix of both. Instead, his deck features two instances of the card "Call it" which lets you trigger a random effect you'll get when flipping your coin with it.

And here we come across the main ruleset when it comes to playing out Rook in negotiations:

• Never ever ever focus on Rigging or Setting your coin.
• Aim to Gamble as much as you can

If you care what result the coin gives you, you are playing Rook wrong. You shouldn't care what Rook gambles period, because if you roll the dice enough times you're going to get all desired effects regardless, not to mention multiple times, despite that the argument targets at random. This means, "Call it" should always, always receive the Replenish upgrade. Drawing a singlular card that lets you choose which weak effect you want to get is terrible. You want to draw something else alongside "Call it", not just itself, especially when you don't have to cast it immediately with the Sticky keyword.

Setting or Rigging one side or the other should be viewed as situational bonuses, but never the primary strategy: you wait until you get the card that sets the coin, then the card that flips the coin (hopefully applying defense where you need it in case you rigged for Heads), then the card that gets bonuses from having one or the other side in the same hand and preferrably on the same turn and even more preferrably when you actually need it, then you do it all over again... oh and you have to stop gambling so you don't waste your Rig amount until you actually need it. Needless to say, all of this will never go smooth. Rolling the dice constantly, ironically, is far more consistent.

That being said, there are three primary distinct strategies for Rook in Negotiations:

1. GAMBLE
   
2. PREPARE
   
3. DISCARD

Apart from those, Rook also has the option to get his hands on the "Pressure" card, which spends the Influence argument and can carry negotiations on its own without the need to commit to either of strategies mentioned above.

GAMBLE

Let's see what Lady Luck has in stock for us! This archetype should be your main go-to when it comes to Rook's Prestige 7 Negotiation. Some cards benefit from having one side of the coin present or the other when being cast, some yield effects from both, and some cards don't care what you gamble as long as you just do it! A lot of Rook's cards feature the Gamble keyword in them, and as such it is quite easy to roll the dice often. Moreover, the cards from this archetype can be utilized outside of Gamble decks as well, being so flexible they fit into any Rook deck you decide to run.

After playing a lot of Rook I can confidently say that there are three cards which make up the backbone of the Gamble archetype: "Call it", "Bluff" and "Dig". Primarily because most of the time, they have a free cost.

• "Dig" is damage, "Bluff" is draw. In a thin deck, what happens is you gamble with "Call it", cast "Dig" for free, then cast "Bluff" for free and draw those cards again, over and over! This is the archetype's foundation, around which Rook's Gamble strategy is built around. Having those cards as your core, the consistency of your deck can be ensured

The second primary strategy that Rook uses is Prepare. Preparing a card does occur naturally through drawing, but most of the time requires doing it manually. Still, cards that feature the Preparation keyword have some good associated effects to boot and as such, this strategy is highly legit on Prestige 7.
Main cards for this archetype consist of: "Praise", "Upright", "Dogged". One of the cards that you should also aim for is "Head Turner", for virtually same reason as "Dig" / "Bluff" combo: when prepared, it is essentially free, assuming you have at least one action available to cast it. All mentioned cards combined with Influence hit really hard, and even more so after upgrading them.
It is imperative that your deck consists of several cards that Prepare, as this effect makes up the foundation of Prepare archetype. Moreover, nothing prevents you from using "Bluff" to help out in drawing more copies of said cards often too!

DISCARD

The third primary strategy that Rook can opt into is Discard. The goal here is to stack Dominance either through cards alone or later with the help of Tyrant's Coin and gamble triggers. The main card for this purpose is "Bottom Snail", which can provide two Dominance stacks after the upgrade, as well as some card draw. This archetype needs cards that discard others, with the primary one being "Snag" because of the Sticky keyword, meaning you can use it when you actually need it without having to draw both "Bottom Snail" and a Discard Source in the same turn, which doesn't happen by itself often early game when you're still upgrading basic cards and haven't gotten any draw sources.

This is probably where people start actually having issues with Rook: the combat part. Figuring out negotiation with Rook isn't half as bad as figuring out how to not die repeatedly on a glass cannon in mid to late stages.

Let's start by mentioning why it is difficult for Rook to perform in combat:

• Rook starts with 42 Health basekit, which is the lowest in the entire game
  
• His basekit Defense cards are straight-up garbage and he has nothing else to protect him with, which means he is extremely fragile early
  
• Weaker basekit cards overall in comparison to Sal, and two of them do not feature the "Destroy" Upgrade, meaning you have to spend money and/or bonuses if you want to get rid of them
  
• Hard to upgrade "Kick" cards, as they cost 2 actions
  
• No card akin to "Sal's Combat Daggers", as such weird to figure out what you should be aiming for initially
  
• Highly reliant on getting good non-basic cards unlike Sal, otherwise will struggle

Personally, I distinguish three playstyles for Rook, with the first one being the most reliable option of three:

1. Fully Charged Rook
   
2. Burn Rook
   
3. Empty Rook

For clarification, when I'm saying Empty Rook, I am referring to the playstyle of utilizing Empty Cells or spending charge constantly for primary defense and/or for primary attack purposes

When you first see Rook's base deck, the first immediate thing that catches the eye is that his base defense card, "Hunker Down", provides only a measly 3 defense. Empty Cells additionally can grant up to 4.

It may seem logical that the game wants you to be empty for defensive purposes. And you can even try building your deck around being empty, which will yield both defensive numbers from Empty Cells as well as some positive effects from cards that trigger off of being Empty.

Primary cards that enable this playstyle are cards that let you expend your charges. Specific card for defensive purposes in Rook's non-basic card collection is "Release Valve", which provides defense for every charge spent with it.

And now we need to establish whether this strategy is viable on prestige 7.

Well, after having quite an experience playing Rook I am going to tell you this straight off the bat:
Relying on being empty, which in essence is actually playing Empty Rook, is MEGA-TRASH a subpar strategy for both defense AND offense

This happens due to the following reasons:

1. Empty Rook relies on having charge and being able to spend it simultaneously. This effectively wastes your time and actions in combat, when both could be used on something better.
   
2. Incredibly poor offense due to reliance on default damage numbers. Almost no way to gain permanent Power apart from two specific cards that both rely on you having drafted another one.
   
3. Offensive cards that feature and benefit from the keyword "Empty":
   
   • a) provide poor effects;
   • b) have no damage on their own;
   • c) half the time won't even trigger
4. The defense you gain from empty cells matters only up until Day 2. Afterwards, it is nonexistant

Below are the above statements described in detail:

1. Let's take the best case scenario for Empty Rook's defense numbers: 4 charged cells, "Casings", "Stone Release Valve" (1 action), "Take Cover" (1 action). In sum with empty cells, you'll receive 32 defense which is really good. This will generally negate a turn worth of enemy damage, for two actions.
   
   Come next turn, you are targeted again for the same damage numbers, what do you do? Mind you this is an actual scenario that you should expect to happen. You need to have "Release Valve" + "Take Cover" again, and moreover get enough charge somehow again to be able to spend said charge for defense. And remember, you have to fight back as well, but you only have so many actions per turn.
   
   You see what I'm getting at here? Getting relevant defense on Empty Rook is a cycle of "getting charge - spending charge". Mind you, charge could be used on some other effect that you may want as well. Even if you draft all the necessary cards and draw all the right cards every turn, you're highly reliant on having charge for defense and being able to replenish said charge quickly. Even "Casings", the card for charge expenditure, needs you to have charge.
   
   Stacking charge, generally speaking, requires actions, which means if you are empty you are constantly spending actions on a subpar effect that does nothing but provide a resource for use, and what you aren't doing in turn, is attacking
   
   
2. Empty Rook has 0 firepower. Period.
   Plain and simple. There is no way for Empty Rook to gain significant additional damage numbers apart from little bonus damage on attack cards that spend charge or apart from temporary power cards.
   
   "Release Valve" could be upgraded to provide temporary power, but this lowers your defense per empty cell spent.
   
   To plan on getting actual benefit from temporary Power that "Release Valve" and "Loader" give, the only two cards in Rook's arsenal that provide this option, you need to have already drafted a specific card: "Brain Tick", to make said Power permanent on the same turn, if you plan on dealing any damage further. Otherwise it is highly likely you won't make full use out of said temporary power you're getting, and will have to use your card's basic damage numbers most of the time which is an incredibly weak way of attacking.
   
   
3. Every single card that benefits Rook from being Empty is bad, frankly speaking. The effects they provide are weak and the condition for obtaining them in the end has negligible benefits. From experience, if you see a card with an "Empty" keyword in it you might as well replace its entire textbox with "Skip this card".
   
   Adding to it, the single auto-gained charge at the start of every turn also plays against your efforts to obtain the Empty keyword effect, which means you have to somehow spend charges before even getting them in the first place.
   
   But guess what? Empty Rook, as has been shown from point one, relies on getting charge for defense too! Which means a lot of the time, unless you're spending all of your charge on the same turn, you're not getting Empty keyword effects half the time.
   
   
4. Four additional defense is not going to do jack against late-game opponents, and it is especially wortheless against several double-digit damage instances. That is an actual combat scenario for Rook in Brawl mode by the way.
   Seriously, how are those numbers going to help you against this?
   
   
   
   

All of this is not to say that Empty Rook is completely unviable. However, Empty Rook is an inconsistent, low-damage, average defense version of Rook that I cannot recommend running in order to complete Prestige 7 Brawl. It can certainly work in Campaign, but if we are talking Brawl, in the overwhelming majority of cases it will not or you are going to have way, way harder time unlike if you were playing another strategy with him.

I've tried to play Empty Rook time and time again, and while he does perform during the first few days, he just gets completely obliterated by the toughest Campaign / Brawl bosses and units in the game.

To give you a concluding example of what Empty Rook feels like against solid bosses, here are screenshots of a Brawl Run I did running an Empty Rook strategy. While I did pass Oolo, which is a boss testamenting any deck's credibility, I did so while getting EXTREMELY LUCKY with another card providing Ricochet, while ending up just barely scraping the win:

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Burn Rook is a viable strategy on Prestige 7, however a slightly more niche one, since it heavily relies on a single card being acquired as early as possible in your run. With this archetype you are trying to stack as many Burn stacks on an opponent as possible and to keep them from running out, resulting not only in solid turn-to-turn damage on a single enemy, but also in quite a heavy Area of Effect damage on other enemies as well. Funny note that enemies which die from Burn on their turn do not cause you to obtain enemies from their friends.


Primarily this Rook archetype utilizes the card "Sear", which applies Burn not in flat amounts as the majority of Rook's cards do, but depending on the damage it deals. As such, it can immediately and quickly stack Burn to high numbers. Burn Rook, just like Fully Charged Rook, can utilize cards that grant Overcharge, to increase Burn stacks Sear applies further, as in this regard Sear sort of "stores" the additional Overcharge you obtain in the form of more Burn stacks depending on damage dealt. Moreover, Concentration buff alongside some Overcharge makes "Sear" quite a damaging card.

Burn runs out quickly unless supported with some Scorched source. The primary card for this is usually "Chimney", as it also helps stack Burn on top of the Scorched stacks, and you want to apply as much Burn as fast as possible.

Other than that, Burn Rook relies on nothing else but these two cards, and can pick supporting cards for him (e.g. "Accelerant" or "Wildfire") as they come by if so desired, making the deck required for this archetype quite thin to begin with.

For means of defending yourself while running this Rook archetype, see "Fully Charged Rook" section, as they are basically the same.

An example of a Rook run using this strategy can be found below in this section. In the video, a Custom Deck Mod was used to specifically get "Sear" early on in the run to show off the archetype (credit to qwerty吃小庄 for making this mod)

https://youtu.be/hBSEAwNSmCQ

Custom Deck Mod by qwerty吃小庄:
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2234233408&searchtext=custom

The strongest and in my opinion most optimal archetype for Rook. It is here that Rook shows what he can really do and accomplish.

The strategy of this archetype is to become fully charged as quickly as you can, stay at full charge for the majority of the time, and stack as much Overcharge as humanly possible to achieve tremendous amounts of damage and overwhelm your enemies with sheer power. You're destined to gain charge at the beginning of each turn, eventually becoming Fully Charged anyway, and the defense you lose on Empty Cells is insignificant, so why not embrace it?

Becoming fully charged and staying at full charge has several benefits

• Some cards cost 0 under the condition you're at full charge, meaning they do not clutter your deck and serve as free damage options while you can save and spend valuable actions on more important cards for example those that can draw more cards, give Overcharge, defense etc.
• The single charge you gain at the start of each turn now converts to Overcharge immediately, transferring from a resource to actual damage buff, while also fulfilling the condition of some cards requiring you to have Overcharge without the need to "find" it manually.
• Basic "Crank" now gives you Overcharge instead of simply a resource, meaning more flexibility in obtaining Overcharge and as such damage

Overcharge increases the potential damage range of Rook's attack cards, and while that is not a detriment by any means, that in itself does not fully optimise his damage potential. To smoothen the damage curve, Rook also needs Concentration alongside to supplement high Overcharge numbers, as that way both minimum and maximum damage thresholds increase simultaneously, keeping each other relevant and in check. Overcharge is not entirely complete without Concentration, and vice-versa Concentration's potential is untapped without Overcharge: in the end, it takes two to tango, as they say. These two powerful buffs in conjunction with each other make Fully Charged Rook what he truly is - a hard-hitting damage machine.

Fully Charged Rook is unique in the aspect that it is the only archetype in which you actually want to keep certain basic cards, on the condition you managed to get specific upgrades, as this version of Rook can utilize them best of all others, in particular - "Blast", with the upgrade being the "Loaded Blast" one. Additionally, "Mirrored Blast" can also be kept in the deck, due to the damage that Fully Charged Rook can achieve, making this card's variation (and other non-basic alikes) quite efficient. "Crank", the basic card for obtaining Charge quickly, having negligible benefits from the other upgrade option, should always, always get the Induction upgrade no matter what, which will tremendously help in achieving fully charged state as quickly as possible, as well as provide great value afterwards due to the Overcharge it gives while you are staying at full charge. Those are the only basic cards that Fully Charged Rook wants to keep.


All others need to be destroyed as they are of low value: "Hair Trigger" is wortheless, and especially since its upgrade variants do not let you destroy it, and "Kicks" not only unnecessarily cost too much for the damage that could be obtained anyway on other cards that may cost you nothing in the first place, but also because having two of these at the start just clutters your deck heavily. Thankfully, "Kicks" do feature the "Destroy" upgrade, unlike "Hair Trigger". As such, that card gets high priority in getting removed first and foremost.

Not only that, but the majority of "Hunker Down" cards need to be removed too. Most upgrades of that card do not feature more than three defense points. Three defense is non-existent after around Day 2, and with Rook being highly fragile he needs way better defense options. The only viable upgrades for "Hunker Down" are Lucid and Boosted. With others, remove them as soon as you get your hands on better non-basic defense options, and even once you do, consider removing the Boosted upgrade too.

To defend yourself against enemies, you really need to get your hands on good non-basic defense cards that give immediate, straightforward defense. The best representatives of such cards are: "Tight Spot", "Sentinel" and "Telegraph". These cards are not reliant on Charge amount at all, do not require you to spend and/or use Charge as means of defending yourself (which is incredibly weak by the way, see "Empty Rook") and will provide all defense that you'll ever need against your opponents and more.

So what is the end result that you should expect with this archetype? Take a look. Other Rook decks can achieve nothing like this. Not even close:


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https://youtu.be/e7D75727bW8
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https://youtu.be/AMPwo5OYLo8

And then, there are the lore-driven Parasite cards. In campaign and brawl they get added to your deck on day two, providing some spiciness to Rook's general gameplay.

It is highly discouraged to remove them in any way either (even through sneaky matters like using "Amnesiator" for example, the game still counts it as card removal) due to the health penalty you will receive for each parasite removal. Said penalty for doing so, in my opinion, highly outweighs both the cards' penalties during encounters and the follow-up benefits you could potentially yield when you eventually hatch them to their final form.

As such, here's the gist of it: simply keep them, moreso since upgrading them isn't an issue, and tough costs for doing so aren't present until their later hatch stages, and even those can be worked around.

Here is a description of what you generally should do with Rook's basic cards you get at the start of every game as well as general deck-building tips:

• Once you're set on which type of primary cards your deck is going to rely on dealing damage, Hostility or Diplomacy, remove all basic cards of the opposite one. Destroy up to two offensive cards depending on your initial draft and/or what upgrades you got for them, but keep at least one until you get better non-basic cards.
  
• Do not destroy Composure cards, unless the upgrade which you ended up with for a Composure card is "Gambe" (that one is inconsistent), or you're at a point of using Turtle Coin.
  
• Do not destroy "Call it" cards, upgrade them to Restored
  
• Remove "Trickery" at your leisure, although I personally don't do it period. Any upgrade is good, Improvise+ for more overall utility, upgraded cards for stronger effects. Try Improvise+ for starters

The guidelines below could be generally utilised for all Rook decks, but are primarily written and suited for Fully Charged Rook:

• Destroy, if possible, all basic attack cards EXCEPT "Loaded" and/or "Mirrored Blast". Any other Blast upgrades are pretty much "meh" and should be removed ASAP.
  
• There are only two options with "Hunker Down" to prioritise getting: Boosted and Lucid, with the latter being the best option. As soon as possible, get your hands on better defense cards. When you do, you are free to remove all basic defense cards completely, unless you got the priority options. And even then I'd consider removing whatever is left.
  
• Do not remove "Crank". Upgrade to Induction when possible, as it's the only easy Charge replenisher Rook has apart from non-basic cards, and once you're at full charge, this will give Overcharge instead.
  
• Remove "Ammo Pouch" at your leisure, although I personally don't do it period. Rook gets more utility through the Improvise+ upgrade, since unlike Sal's "Fight Dirty", "Ammo Pouch" doesn't have a card that gives Rook Power, and a lot of cards require you to have some charge to be able to cast them; moreover, their upgraded variants generally aren't that significant but you would find it highly useful to get a multitude of utility options to choose from for the majority of situations in combat instead.

• DO NOT REMOVE PARASITE CARDS. ESPECIALLY EARLY ON. Doing so will inflict a significant penalty to Rook, and he is already fragile as is. If you however still decide to get rid of a parasite card, be advised that the Combat Parasite is generally weaker overall.
  
• Whenever possible, and if the situation allows, progress through Hatch phases as quickly as you can, to speed up the process of eventually getting the final Parasite variant. Mind that hatching does not progress if you are Fatigued.

• It's usually a good idea to eventually remove most (ideally all) of your basic attack cards because they provide little damage / utility. Most of your offensive in a deck should come from non-basic cards.
  
  
• Thinning your deck is your top-priority. This will allow you to draw good cards more often. Bad cards clutter your deck and are a waste of a draw. You only have so many actions per turn, and must utilise them as much as you can. "Thinning a deck" comes from destroying cards as well as having some of them expend upon use (and getting item cards with the Replenish keyword). So assuming your deck has 14 cards, if half of them have the "Expend" keyword (abilities for instance), that means that this deck essentially has 7 cards in it for permanent use during encounters, which will allow you to draw these 7 good cards over and over again.
  
  
• Since you (most of the time) have 3 actions at your disposal, you must value each action point. That means you have to be ruthless when it comes to choosing which cards to pick. A lot of the time it's better to skip the cards you are given in a draft. Remember, the less bad cards clutter your deck, the better.
  
  
• For the same reason as above, you should strive for making your deck cheap and low-cost while prioritising cards which provide best efficiency for your actions. This will ensure you get as much output from each of your turns as possible, rather than just being able to cast two-three cards and ending your turn
  
  
• Choosing a combat/negotiation archetype for Rook you want to go with should come from first 1-3 card drafts the game gives you. Naturally, if you get a good card early on, it should be an indicator of which archetype you should be building and steering towards on that session.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Gamble / Generic

Commentary: The damage is weak. For a single action yields alright gambling numbers on average, as most cards allow you to gamble just once in comparison, however it only gambles if it dealt damage, has a wide damage spread and since it's a manipulate card it cannot increase its damage by regular means. Fits in any deck, but primarily synergises with "Dilemma", so sees better use in Gamble decks. Post upgrade it feels awesome to Gamble 5 or 6 times from a single card, but despite this, there are other ways to Gamble on the regular and more consistently, as such this card comes as mostly unnecessary.

Upgrades: No preference, I pick Tall for the chance at gambling more

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Gamble / Generic

Commentary: Unlike "Spin", this gives consistent gambling numbers, although playing 4 cards is easy and as such the argument it creates runs out quickly. It's a tiny-like "Coin Juggler" flourish that you can spam provided you have enough actions to get lots of free gamble effects

Upgrades: Considering in a proper deck this runs out of charges quickly, Ambush is a terrible upgrade

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: One copy is more than enough and this is exactly what Prepare decks need in order to become consistent from turn to turn. An Invaluable ability that facilitates preparing any card you need immediately at the beginning of every turn. Naturally, if the argument gets destroyed, the bonus is lost, but the value this gives in any negotiation is too good to pass up.

Upgrades: I take Pale most of the time

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Gamble Niche

Commentary: This is a slightly different Sal's "Entrapment" for gamble decks. Everything will target the Bait this card creates, so you can simply spam your Composure on it and chill out. Unfortunately cannot gain more than 12 resolve, which means whenever you gamble it only heals this argument, and it costs two before upgrade, which means if you cannot immediately Gamble and defend it at the same time afterwards, it may get instantly destroyed. Moreover, Rook doesn't need this, as once you get Turtle Coin, the Composure you get from it covers all your wants and needs in terms of defending arguments.

Upgrades: Boosted just heals it a bit more. Pale is better to start protecting it faster.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You don't need this ability. Rigging generally is weak, and Gambling is more consistent. However rigging Heads for the first few gambles can be useful in terms of getting defense right off the bat. Naturally, if your deck is thin and you draw a card that provides benefits from one side or the other, this helps it out, but you're better off just not bothering and gambling on the result instead

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: For-fun card. Inconsistent as hell, as you get to choose from random cards that may not even be needed. Destroying cards should come from doing it outside of negotiation, not during, and doing so especially shouldn't add something else to your deck that you may not even want

Upgrades: The Final one is taken once you've destroyed practically everything you wanted, and the Wide one is if you want to have fun for longer. But generally, this card is wortheless, so I do not have preference on its upgrades.

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: Weak Composure numbers and Prepare effect, even if consistently prepared. Just get Turtle Coin and this card can go in the trash

Upgrades: Wide if you can prepare cards every turn so it can protect other arguments, otherwise Focused.

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: If prepared, gives good Composure numbers, post upgrade - very good. Unfortunately it requires to always be Prepared for the effect to take place, which gets in the way of casting other cards requiring Prepare, and unless it's not on your left-most position, just sits in your hand doing nothing.

Upgrades: Wide

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: "Jargon" with a different requirement of simply being in your hand, and it also gives a whopping 3 Composure, but only if you constantly Prepare, unlike "Jargon", which requires to just cast cards but only if itself is Prepared. In my opinion, Helmet can be slightly better as it does not get in the way of Prepare cards, but only on the condition that you have a lot of Prepare effects, otherwise "Jargon" is better.

Upgrades: Enhanced

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: Easy to get value out of and then it expends, but the effect is somewhat weak. Doesn't really take up a slot in your deck/hand so alright card to get effects from your coin early. You can even take several of these at once.

Upgrades: Since it is easy to Evoke, take the better effect

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Gamble

Commentary: Essentially, free damage on each and every gamble. This is great as if you gamble often, it is ultra-easy to get crazy good widespread damage from this. "Coin Juggler" Flourish makes this card insane.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Upgrade this card ASAP. Two actions to draw two cards is a bit much considering Bluff does the same thing at 0 cost often, BUT the gamble effect this has attached is great and once this card is upgraded, it becomes REALLY GOOD. Drawing two cards for one action and one gamble becomes justifiable but if they become discounted it's crazy value, not to mention when "Dead Draw" itself gets discounted via Grafts/Items. Besides, cards get discounted until played so you do not necessarily have to cast them immediately.

Upgrades: Doesn't matter. For cards that upgrade for a particular coin side, choose any and upgrade all cards to have the effect for that one side, way more consistent.

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Discard Niche

Commentary: Main usage comes from discarding "Kicker" and "Bottom Snail" simultaneously. But the card is unnecessary and sometimes straight up bad, as unless there is at least something in your hand that needs discarding this is just trash. Other cards perform the Discard function better, despite having a singular target. Setting the coin is a slight bonus.

Upgrades: Sticky, to be able to cast this when you have both cards in hand that need discarding.

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Gamble Niche

Commentary: The only primary usage of this card is with Turtle Coin, as a pseudo-finisher card. Then and only then you will see around 20-30+ damage on it. Otherwise, this is ultra weak, does little and you need your Composure to defend yourself instead.

Upgrades: Sticky, to be able to finish off your opponent with the damage it gives after you have Gambled a lot with Turtle Coin.

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Highly benefits from Influence, which is usually what Prepare decks use. In a vacuum however, highly unreliable, and you'd rather target specific arguments instead.

Upgrades: Tall preferrably, especially with Influence.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Gamble / Generic

Commentary: Slightly better "Pleasantries" with an added bonus damage, although does provide a gamble option

Upgrades: Boosted because you cannot rely on gamble bonus damage and frankly speaking you do not care about 1 more max point of damage on this

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Honestly, the best card draw for Rook in any deck. Mainly because often it is free of cost, despite providing no other effect but card draw before the upgrade. After the upgrade, it's just too good to pass up with an additional free card alongside. Fits everywhere, synergises with gambling tremendously, and is a core card for Gamble decks.

Upgrades: Doesn't matter. For cards that upgrade for a particular coin side, choose any and upgrade all cards to have the effect for that one side, way more consistent.

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: "Decency" is, indeed, decent. Gives a card and an Influence stack instantly at one action, without any other conditions. Good post upgrade too. Usually used for Influence stacking, but could be utilised in Prepare decks as a consistent Influence/draw source.

Upgrades: Depends on what you want, but usually Boosted. For Prepare decks, you only require one Influence stack, as having more doesn't make much sense. If you need more Influence for other reasons, go for Enhanced.

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Gamble

Commentary: In gamble decks, this is virtually always a 0-cost card. High damage at max, so loves Influence. Get two-three of these alongside some card draw and you're set for your damage needs. Unfortunately, at times when it is NOT 0-cost, just clutters your hand, so be careful and get some gamble triggers beforehand. Moreover, without the Influence argument you won't get the best value out of this card's 0-cost effect, as such it is highly preferrable to have at least one Influence source alongside this.

Upgrades: Always Boosted, since easy to make it cheap anyway

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Prepare Main Card

Commentary: Nice source of Preparation effect. If you can spare an action, Prepare this card into a follow-up prepare of another with "Dogged"s effect. Casting "Dogged" when it's not Prepared however is costly, and isn't usually worth it. Despite this, straight-up preparing a card at no condition is good enough to constitute this card as a primary one in Preparation decks

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card is really solid. It packs more damage than default "Pleasantries" for the same action but it also provides Influence if you have heads, and it can definitely serve as an Influence stacking card post upgrade or an additional Influence source.

Upgrades: I prefer more damage, but choose the Influence upgrade if you need to stack it more for other reasons

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Prepare Main Card

Commentary: Praise for this card indeed! Takes up a core slot in Preparation decks. The effect is easily obtainable and helps Preparation decks to reach those high damage numbers since most of them feature high damage at maximum edge. As such this card is the main source of Influence in those decks.

Upgrades: Prepare decks don't stack Influence, so take damage. Outside of Prepare decks, this may not be so consistent to provide the desired effect.

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Prepare Main Card

Commentary: Another card that makes up the core of Preparation decks. As you may have noticed, synergises with "Praise" perfectly. This and "Praise" help you out in achieving both high damage numbers for Diplomacy cards and a consistent preparation effect. Though, before the upgrade is a bit low on damage

Upgrades: Always Tall, no reason to go for Rooted.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: If you successfully gamble this out, you get an alright effect. If you do not, you just spent one action to flip a coin to obtain a weak effect from your core argument that could be gambled for free. I do not like cards of this type as they are inconsistent. Rigging for this card specifically to obtain an alright effect is meh.

Upgrades: Doesn't matter unless your deck is rigging for a specific side

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: You do not need this in Prepare decks. While it does provide a preparation effect for them, rigging is weak and isn't usually worth it to consider, and there are better alternatives that could provide overall more utility for the same cost.

Upgrades: Visionary

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: By itself a weak card that is unnecessary to take, although the more gamble methods you have the easier this is to Evoke so it does not clutter your hand or deck usually. The damage numbers this provides however is on the meh side, even post upgrade.

Upgrades: Boosted, to give it a bit more relevancy in damage

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: See "Blockade". Also, on a side note, "Burn" exists and Rook's Diplomacy decks don't prioritise AoE as much as heavy single-target damage

Upgrades: Doesn't matter unless your deck is rigging for a specific side

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Prepare Main Card

Commentary: In Preparation decks, this is essentially a free damage source, provided you have at least one action to cast it, which allows for it to be present in multiple copies, so feel free to draft several. If it gets discounted, even better. Max damage on heads, and as such no reliance on Influence, is just icing on the cake.

Upgrades: I take Visionary more often because other Prepare cards feature more default damage anyway and this could replace itself with another "Head Turner" or an utility card instead.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Primary usage of this is to obtain and/or stack Influence. But I find the actual use for this card in synergy with "Weight" and that's it. And yes, that card will cost 0 immediately upon using "Obligation" on it. This means that the combination of these two cards could be used in any deck, but outside of said synergy, it's subpar and is not necessary anywhere, even in prepare decks.

Upgrades: This card's upgrades are interesting. Preparation for Hostility decks is nonexistant but it's fun to think that you could get high Dominance numbers on the fly with this, In reality though, if you are taking this for Dominance-reliant decks, Hostility does not feature any high cost cards to yield much benefit from this apart from very few. So in the end, this card is only good for Diplomacy decks to stack more Influence, or at best use it for "Trade" to exchange for Dominance

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Solo-Carry Card

Commentary: This is probably the most busted Diplomacy card in the entire game. It rapidly accelerates its damage at a condition that is very easy to meet, and only costs one action for it. When the condition is met, the damage is amplified first and only then dealt to an enemy argument. So easy it is to stack "Pressure"s damage in fact, that I deliberately avoid picking this card unless I just want to straight up win due to how much it trivializes negotiations. This can be your only attack card alongside any Influence generating one and you will eventually and quickly win any negotiation, even before the upgrade. "Pressure" single-handedly carries negotiations on its back and there is no other card that can by itself achieve such ridiculous levels of damage in Rook's negotiation card pool.

As Rook has no default means of generating Influence himself (apart from basic "Pleasantries" upgrades), this card relies on you having an Influence generating source, since by itself it's worse than regular "Pleasantries"

Upgrades: Always, always, always Boosted.

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: While it is possible to stack lots of Influence stacks with Rook, there is not much benefit in gambling it all out for this card. Best usage in my opinion is synergy with "Fallout", but you don't need "Prominence" at all in order to obtain many gamble triggers for your deck. Gambling should come naturally from other sources and frankly speaking you can easily get more gambling triggers from them than you would ever with this card.

Upgrades: Both are bad still. Gambling all your hard-to-get Dominance is even worse than gambling all Influence.

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Nice utility card that, provided you have card draw, can net you more out of a single turn.

Upgrades: I prefer visionary so it replaces itself, but in a deck with enough card draw as is boosted is better

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Don't waste your Influence on Rig. Moreover, don't focus on Rigging period. This card is even worse if you don't have Influence, as it will just sit in your hand doing nothing.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card is either free or a dead-weight (pun intended) in your hand. Obvious synergy with "Obligation". Also finds place in Prepare decks alongside Praise. Getting Influence with Rook in those decks isn't difficult, but outside of decks that need Influence or stack and restack it quickly finds no use

Upgrades: Tall. Either this card is free consistently, or it's not worth running

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Gamble

Commentary: This serves as a finisher in gamble decks or just a strong attack later in negotiation. Can serve as a postponed damage substitute for "Fallout" in case you got presented with "Cash Out" earlier. Nice that it does not depend on being in your hand to gain damage, and can stack itself to around 20-30 damage on average, or more provided you have enough gamble effects. Unfortunately before casting this card is just useless, so having card draw alongside this is necessary, otherwise you're cluttering your hand. And generally speaking, after obtaining enough gamble triggers alongside other cheap cards like "Dig" and "Dilemma", this card is unnecessary in gamble decks anyway

Upgrades: Since this is mostly a finisher card, I take the Boosted upgrade

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Unless you have a lot of card draw to be able to compensate for the effect, I do not believe this is worth running. You discard your entire hand at the end of turn every turn, and if you don't get card draw on a random set of cards with your next turn, your actions become worthless

Upgrades: Maybe keep it Initial. Remember, you discard your whole hand at the end of turn, so your chances of getting card draw on the next are less and less the more you cast this argument.

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Defense this gives is good. If the Influence spent was limited, this could serve as a nice pseudo turtle coin effect. But you're spending all Influence, so in case you need it for something else, you'll have to regain it again, wasting actions. What's more, defending all arguments is quite a rare necessity, as majority of the time you're trying to defend specific ones. Getting Turtle coin, as well as having no Influence gaining cards prior to getting this card, makes it useless in your deck.

Upgrades: Maybe Boosted for a stronger effect per Influence stack spent

Rating: 4-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Great damage card, shines most in gamble decks where the effect is easily obtainable due to flipping coin a lot. Really high damage at max. Think of it as Sal's "Bluster", but for Rook instead.
However, what's also good about this card and why it is worth spending 2 actions for it, is that obtaining the double damage and gamble effect is easy as hell, due to the requirement being only that your current coin position is Heads. The damage is nothing to scoff at, and when effect is ready this card destroys virtually any argument, especially when paired with Influence. And it gives you Gamble trigger on top. Really, really nice. The only downside is if you have no Influence and coin on Snails, casting this card then may be bad due to high variance in possible damage range

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: "Fallout" for Prepare decks. Unfortunately, the damage this gives doesn't even come close to its gamble variant, since the amount of preparation effects you can get on average is very low per turn. Preparation decks don't need this card in general either: their damage numbers on attack cards are already high by themselves and two damage here and there won't make or break negotiation for you

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Campaign-specific Generic

Commentary: "Blacklist" is only available during Rook's campaign, and you get to choose it at the start of your run with the other option being "Shovel".

Telling you right now, taking this card is essentially playing negotiation Rook on easy mode. Provided you cast this every negotiation you can, by mid-game it will acquire about 15-20 damage and by late game it can grow up to a 35-40 damage nuke, which is essentially almost half of late-game core arguments' health points. Needless to say, for 2 actions this is incredibly busted, on all occasions. Naturally, starts off pretty weak, so cast it every time you can.

Upgrades: There are none available

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: AoE Damage

Commentary: The more arguments your opponent has the better this becomes. You take this card primarily because of the AoE damage effect. The condition of having Snails is easily obtainable through gambling, and alongside a few Dominance stacks becomes a great wide damage card at one action. Without any Dominance however, its best use is against barons only. Finally, somewhat unreliable, because of the very same condition.

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Main Dominance Source / Discard Target

Commentary: If you're building for Dominance, this card is essential. The effect is great and could be utilized several times in the same turn, especially if your discard sources are free of cost, for example "Snag". As such having several of these in your deck just seems natural. Whenever you see a discard source card, it is there for this card specifically. But without consistent discard sources, and when drawing it by itself, this card is useless and clutters your hand hard. Needs upgrading ASAP and support of other cards to work.

Early on in any run, you could upgrade Rook's basic "Rumble" to have discard in it to make use of "Bottom Snail" faster and start grabbing drawing sources as they come in drafts to replenish your hand quicker. After a while, focus on getting specialized discard sources while replacing the default "Grumble" cards.

Upgrades: Main upgrade is Boosted. This card is here to stack Dominance for you.

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: A universally great card all around, which fits into any deck you're building for. Mainly because most of the time, it is free of cost. Shines in gamble decks where you can cast this repeatedly alongside Bluff, but is also a Hostility card at the same time so benefits from high Dominance numbers. Several copies of these are a must-have in gamble decks. A reliable easily-upgradeable card that does not clutter your hand and is quite, quite handy overall.

Upgrades: Doesn't matter. For cards that upgrade for a particular coin side, choose any and upgrade all cards to have the effect for that one side, way more consistent.

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Discard Source

Commentary: Alright damage card serving as another source of discard utility

Upgrades: Alongside other drawing cards go for Boosted, otherwise Visionary

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Prepare

Commentary: Its prepare effect is really nice especially with the damage it gives and you can play it alongside other prepare cards despite preparation having mainly Diplomacy focused cards

Upgrades: One more or less damage doesn't really make or break this card but I prefer Boosted because then it is reliable by itself and not on being prepared, sometimes I just want to cast damage cards by themselves

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card gets better the more Dominance stacks you have and is one of the better cards that benefits from large Dominance numbers. However without those by itself it's pretty weak. Noteworthy mention, it triggers the gamble effect first and only then checks what you gambled to see if its next effect should trigger.

Upgrades: If you're running this, you're probably stacking Dominance. As such, attacking three times highly outweighs the other option.

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: By itself this card is ultra weak. You're just naturally better off stacking large Dominance numbers and playing other damage cards than stacking a lot of arguments which you have to protect too if you want this to deal at least comparable damage. Even the +2 upgrade doesn't really outweigh that. Despite this, it is needed to mention that the card isn't that reliant on Dominance to deal alright damage, but only post-upgrade.

Upgrades: Enhanced. Still, meh card.

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Dominance / Discard Source

Commentary: Using this as one of your primary discard cards for "Bottom Snail" makes it easier to stack Dominance to high numbers. Unfortunately doesn't stick in your hand, and if you cannot draw "Bottom Snail" alongside this card, it becomes a bit of a detriment. Post-upgrade "Tantrum" is better than this card, as the discard becomes optional.

Upgrades: Alongside other drawing cards go for Boosted, otherwise Visionary

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Gamble

Commentary: This fits everywhere but really shines in gamble decks. Gambling should be viewed as a free or side thing with other cards, which this provides, but the kicker is that after the upgrade it replaces itself which is invaluable. And it gets upgraded easily too, since you don't have to really do anything but just play out negotiations naturally. Before the upgrade it does clutter the hand a bit however with the ease at which it upgrades itself this is definitely worth running. Sometimes I put two of these in my deck

Upgrades: By default, Visionary. Strained only if you're running "Bottom Snail" or "Kicker", but honestly this card's discard utility is random since you don't decide when it happens, as such it's unreliable

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: AoE Damage

Commentary: By itself it's bad. If you successfully gamble this out, you get an alright effect. If you do not, you just spent one action to flip a coin to obtain a weak effect from your core argument that could be gambled for free. I do not like cards of this type as they are inconsistent. Rigging for this card specifically to obtain an alright effect is meh. However once upgraded and when used in dominance-stacking decks, becomes a reliable AoE damage source.

Upgrades: If you upgrade it to wide, then it will always be AoE damage no matter what you roll, but more importantly the damages on both sides of the coin are enhanced because hostility cards' damage numbers in descriptions also benefit from Dominance. Alongside some Dominance stacks, this becomes 100% reliable damage source that damages every single argument your opponent has. Needless to say, that's pretty good.

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Main Discard Source

Commentary: This should be viewed as a primary source of discard effect and the one you will be comparing other discard effects to. First of all, the card is free to cast. Second of all, you don't have to do it immediately and are allowed to keep it until the card you want to discard comes along. Third, the upgrades are good overall. Naturally, you want to use it on Bottom Snail or Kicker, there's no other main use anywhere for this card. By itself does nothing.

Upgrades: Visionary by default. Discarding two cards at once, while rare but highly rewarding, only happens when you're running several unplayable cards which want to get discarded, which in turn means you might not draw cards that play themselves

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Discard Source

Commentary: This helps setting your coin to Snails which helps trigger other cards' effects that benefit from it. Mainly: obtaining "Kicker"s Snails side effect. But in majority of cases it's just simply easier to gamble that side of the coin out than spending one action for it. Outside of decks with discard cards finds no use. By itself it does nothing.

Upgrades: Visionary. Pale version is just a different Snag.

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Dominance Source

Commentary: Because Rook doesn't have any basic cards that help him build Influence, this finds use mainly alongside "Decency", more so its +1 Influence upgraded variant. The Dominance numbers this card gives are good and its fine to run as your main Dominance source if you don't wish to rely on discard, but what's annoying about "Trade" is that its tough to upgrade, as there are no early-game unupgraded cards for Hostility-focused decks specifically that give you two Influence stacks immediately, as such without several influence sources this card clutters your hand A LOT.

Upgrades: See, there is no point in upgrading it to Pale, because if you managed to manually upgrade this in the first place you already have cards that give you high enough Influence stacks

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: AoE Damage

Commentary: While it does hit all arguments by default at no condition which is useful, you lose all Dominance while doing so, and building Dominance with Rook isn't easy. "Slugstorm" / "Burn" can provide the same effect without making you lose all your hard-earned Dominance, albeit at a slight condition

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Classic reset utility card. This can be used in any deck to reset your hand even if you have this as your last card in it, or just draw a better set of cards if you didn't get the ones you wanted initially, and the utility this gives varies from at the very least good to great depending on your current hand. Serves also as a nice backup plan if your drawn hand was total trash. Naturally, its discard also triggers "Bottom Snail" and "Kicker", so in those decks this shines even more and you can strategically discard them both in hand with this alone if you so desire.
Despite all this, if you don't draw it with a bad hand or just happened to not draw bad at all, this will clutter your hand. Still, it expends upon cast and is not annoying at all, since it gives you cards back in return.

Upgrades: Pale, you only want to ever use it once per negotiation, there are essentially no times this is required to be cast repeatedly. And it gives more cards back too.

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Hostility Card Draw

Commentary: Drawback has... honestly, no drawback to running it! By itself the draw for one action this gives is good. But this is too good to pass up in Hostility decks. You're not always guaranteed to draw Hostility cards with this, as you can draw Maneuver, Status or Diplomacy cards too but in practice you're almost guaranteed to get some value out of the cheapening effect while running it in primarily Hostility-focused decks, especially since cards are discounted until played, which means you can leave them for later! Once upgraded, this is even better.

Upgrades: Visionary. There are few Hostility cards that cost 2 actions for Rook, and they aren't that worth running generally.

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Discard Target

Commentary: This is the second card that benefits from Discard Sources. Remember, hostility cards' damage numbers in descriptions also benefit from Dominance and this card is no exception. The more Dominance you have, the more damage this can deal. While unlike "Bottom Snail" you're not guaranteed to always replace this with a provided draw effect, it has a different goal of just nuking a random argument on the spot

Upgrades: Two more damage on discard is negligible, but if upgraded to Twisted variant, then it has synergy with "Drawback", and its always useful to have several options of casting this either by hand or discard.

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Rig and Draw

Commentary: For a single card, this yields most Rig value out of all in the game. But it rigs the Snails side, which outside of Turtle Coin only provides damage effects so you're not going to be defending yourself with your coin period if you plan on using it as your main draw card. While it does help to set up cards that require Snails, rigging is a weak strategy to go for in general. In the end the card becomes a sore in the eye: you need that defense side of the coin.

Upgrades: Visionary.

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't

Commentary: Getting Dominance with Rook isn't necessarily easy and it is your main argument for stacking damage on other Hostility cards. Spending all of your hard-earned Dominance which is usually low in stacks anyway for a subpar effect is horrible. What this card does is it first spends all of your Dominance and only then starts its effect, meaning its damage won't benefit from Dominance numbers and will just deal 2 damage per stack. Moreover, when you compare it with Brute, this achieves less damage for more cost and an added gamble effect, not to mention it always clutters your hand. Poor card.

Upgrades: Whatever.

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Not a necessary card but helps out early game. This is used as a one-of to help deal with annoying defensive arguments such as those that bartenders have. Stealing composure is better of course but simply removing it is great too. Could be used virtually anywhere in any type of deck, it's not here for the damage so even if you have a graft lowering Hostility cards' damage this suffers no penalty even post upgrade. Though, at times when there's little or no composure to be removed, this card will clutter your hand.

Upgrades: Doesn't matter. For cards that upgrade for a particular coin side, choose any and upgrade all cards to have the effect for that one side, way more consistent.
If you want to use Rig for this, then upgrade it to the side you're going to be rigging the most. But then again, if there's no composure to be removed, this card wastes a card slot in your hand.

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic / Discard Target

Commentary: One Heated is weak, it's better the more of those you have at the same time. Unfortunately with this card you cannot make them quickly, since you need to discard it several times in order to achieve the same result as you would with a single copy of Sal's "Agitation" for example. As a supplementary card its fine but not something you can keep discarding and not playing because the negotiation will ramp up in difficulty faster than you'll get enough damage with this, not to mention you have to protect this fragile argument

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Rig and Pseudo-Draw

Commentary: See "Radula", except this gives less Rig but a different "draw" variant. This could be better than just drawing, provided you even have Hostility cards in your draw pile, or worse, because if there are none, you'd rather just draw something

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You're not guaranteed to draw Hostility cards (or any type of card in general), but even if you do the effect this gives is a little weak. Still, its alright for gamble decks if nothing else.

Upgrades: It's still weak in both cases, but Visionary gives a bit more value and increases your chances of drawing Hostility cards

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Gamble Generic

Commentary: Weak damage at base, best used with "Coin Juggler" Flourish. Outside of it, requires a lot of gambling effects to ramp up since you're not always guaranteed to land on Snails. Rigging for this could be seen as a viable option but then you're not defending yourself. And generally speaking the effort this card requires is redundant, as you're better off stacking Dominance with Rook than relying on stacking damage on this card, and deal way more damage with cards that cost less, which is obviously easier.

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Discard Accelerator

Commentary: Costly, but an invaluable argument for Discard-oriented decks. Replenishing your hand for each discard is exactly what you need, and having this argument in play accelerates your ability to draw discard sources (especially good if they are free) as well as their targets, free or virtually free cards such as "Call it", "Bluff", "Dig"... once you start going with this, you're only limited by your actions and your hand size.

Upgrades: Pale. One more stack just gives this argument 2 additional health, which is negligible

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Dominance / Discard Source

Commentary: Before the upgrade it is a little weak. Discarding no-cost cards, such as "Bottom Snail" or "Kicker" yields... basically nothing because they don't cost anything, so you're just getting their effects, which could be obtained through "Snag" which is free, and there are no high-cost cards in Rook's arsenal you want to keep in your deck for this card specifically. Despite this, could be used to discard cards that you don't plan on utilizing on any given turn if you can afford it and post upgrade this becomes essentially a +2 Dominance card at no condition which is great

Upgrades: Boosted. You don't have to discard anything in order to get 2 Dominance. Everything you decide to discard on top is a bonus

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Worth to use cards that spend Overcharge are few, as such this card's value is low. Card draw can be achieved easier with other options

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic / Infinite with Char

Commentary: By itself, an alright draw card which is sometimes free. Has a niche purpose of making an infinite combo with "Char" and any card that spends charge (see "Char" for details)

Upgrades: I prefer more cards if nothing else

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: The only way you're getting full value out of this card is alongside "Brain Tick", otherwise it's quite meh and is greedy for Charge, being highly useless at times where you have none available.

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Best utilized with "Psionic Storm". But even then, the defense this gives is quite low. You need several of these to get solid defense numbers, and they all have to be Pale.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't

Commentary: Trash card. Two flat bonus damage that cannot be increased does nothing.

Upgrades: Don't use this card

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Solid effect, however reliant on non-basic defense cards. Rook's basic defense numbers are weak and he can hardly mitigate damage during early-mid game stages. Other defense cards help out, but "Telegraph" has the best synergy with this card's effect, as it will most of the time, provided you have enough Concentration, mitigate damage instances, and once it does, "Readied" just helps you maintain the needed Concentration for "Telegraph" and increase your defense further constantly without the need to apply Concentration separately, and even help jump back quicker should you lose some Concentration.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic / Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: Scanned is a busted debuff. Drawing cards for attacking an opponent is something you generally get from cards' upgrades and in limited amounts, and this debuff wouldn't be so busted if it were to decay after every attack, but as it stands at the time of writing this guide, it doesn't. Which in turn means that Scanned allows for free infinite damage strategies for Rook. Just having "Scanner" and at least two basic "Loaded Blast" cards in a thin deck equals having infinite damage on any opponent that has Scanned applied to them. Essentially, having a deck full of free cost damage cards and "Scanner" means Rook gets to play combat on easy-mode. As such, while fitting for any deck, "Scanner" gets its full potential realized in Fully Charged Rook decks, which utilize a lot of 0-cost cards at full charge or with some Overcharge. Even without free cost cards, draw effect on any attack is always useful no matter what, especially considering Scanned counts instances of attacks too, meaning attacking more than once with the same card draws you that many in turn. Needless to say, the card is busted solely due to the debuff being so strong it breaks the game for Rook.

Upgrades: Precise is better generally: sometimes you want to attack specific opponents ignoring the rest and you don't really care about one more Scanned since this is easy to reapply but you care who you want to attack with this debuff on. However Boosted is also fine, as you can keep applying more Scanned stacks to enemies until they all have one.

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't use this card

Commentary: The damage is too small to consider playing this at all

Upgrades: Don't use this card

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Unreliable as charge amount varies, and apart from draw it provides no additional effect. "Lifeline" for comparison gives 2 cards always regardless of charge. This card belongs to the pool of ones that enable the Empty keyword but Empty Rook is a subpar strategy anyway so who cares. Alright card but there are better ones to spend your entire charge on, and frankly speaking, I believe that "Squeeze" is straight up better.

Upgrades: Boosted for better draw

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Nope

Commentary: Counter is trash in this game, even more trash for Rook and is not worth spending all of your Charge on

Upgrades: Don't play this card

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The most busted card draw card for Rook. Gaining Overcharge straight-up, regardless of charge, at no condition? Sign me up. Overcharge is what Rook wants always, and "Squeeze" is even better post upgrade. Great synergy with costly cards as well, such as "Telegraph". I have to mention that this card also finds niche use with "Boat Anchor", although I would never recommend anyone run that strategy, and a couple of "Squeeze" cards alongside costly "Boat Anchor"s can yield you the maximum amount of Overcharge in the game which is 99. Absolutely fantastic card that cannot be passed up.

Upgrades: Both are fantastic, no preference

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: The defense you get from this is weak. Gaining charge every turn also plays against your efforts in getting max defense from this. See section on Empty Rook.

Upgrades: Induction

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Counter is still bad. Moreso on Rook.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: THE singular 99-defense card for Rook. It is the single best defense card in the game for him period, no other card can do what this card does by itself alone. It provides valuable Concentration that Rook needs essentially everywhere but more so in Fully Charged decks, but the real deal is the defense it gives for every single Concentration point. It is the card that once you have any Concentration source in your deck (by itself can be a bit slow) can really quickly provide you with anywhere between 20-99 defense especially after upgrading it. This card is what allows fragile glass-cannon Rook to stand his ground, live through and defend against the toughest opponents and bosses in the game, and not a single Rook deck can help him get through those without having this card in his arsenal. While always costly, at the same time always worth using when you need it, and you will need it almost constantly.

Upgrades: Always Stone, for the best defense available in the game for Rook

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak card. Burn Rook doesn't need this by definition. Fully Charged Rook doesn't need this either: despite high damage numbers and potentially good synergy, this effect is simply unnecessary most of the time, as he plows through opponents individually. Ricochet may help a bit during early game against several enemies but other than that it's a situational debuff that is best left for "Psionic Storm" to apply.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Nice effect attached to alright card draw. Rook really wants Concentration, as it increases his minimum damage output which has great synergy with Overcharge in turn. What's good to mention is that the effect isn't dependant on drawn cards' type, which makes this card a great and reliable source of Concentration for Rook. I have to mention that this card also finds niche use with "Boat Anchor", although I would never recommend anyone run that strategy.

Upgrades: Any are great, no matter what you choose

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Nope

Commentary: You don't need this effect period.

Upgrades: Ever.

Rating: 4/5 or 1-/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: If you're using this card alone on one opponent it's giga-weak due to negligible Burn numbers. However, against multiple opponents this card is insane. It almost feels like cheating. Naturally, to get the full effect from this, it needs support of other Burn cards, does not work by itself very well.
Here's a brief guide to "Wildifire": stack high Burn, preferrably with some Scorched so it doesn't go away fast, on a single enemy which has the highest health. Then "Wildfire" him and see how busted this card is against several enemies. This doesn't even trigger Counter or Sentry effects of Nadan's enemies. Moreover, cast it once more while the Burn stacks are still intact on anyone and the combat is just over. The wave of bots in brawl can be eradicated with this card's support.

Upgrades: I always take Boosted, you don't need AoE Scorched, since most of your Burn should be on one-two targets, on which you stack Scorched through "Chimney" or "Accelerant"

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: Grab and upgrade this immediately. This card provides Scorched which you need after stacking a bit of Burn on an enemy to keep the stacks high. Alternatively you can cast this immediately and just get Scorched going through "Chimney". This card will ensure that your early Burn stacks aren't wasted.

Upgrades: Always Wide.

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: Scorched is seldom applied. The Burn numbers this card gives are insignificant. Hence, it's bad, even in several copies

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Overcharge is times more important than at best 6 defense and some crappy Counter numbers for a turn.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Don't use this card

Commentary: Counter is still bad. Especially in ultra-low numbers

Upgrades: Don't use this card

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Quite a passive effect that relies on other cards which spend charge but overall this effect can help you maintain Charge / Overcharge throughout combat should you happen to spend charge. However most cards that do that are weak, and by himself Rook spends charge only through his "Ammo Pouch" / "Hair Trigger", so you may find this card lacking in use. Mark acts as a sort of "delayed Overcharge" that you can trigger when you'd like, but you need to attack the same target several times for this to happen, and I'd rather get Charge / Overcharge instantly.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: -1/5
Usage: Unusable

Commentary: There are no words to fully describe how absolutely and utterly wortheless, useless and trash this card is.

• First of all, in a vacuum, you're not going to be able to cast this. For this to cost 1, you need to empty your hand of every other card, and that is not happening in any deck ever. This also means that you cannot upgrade it by natural means too.
  
• Second of all, the effect for even achieving this unlikely situation isn't justified because "Tight Spot" exists and it always costs 1 with the same effect no matter what, which in turn means every cost of this card above 1 is an absolute utter waste of actions.
  
• Third of all, why does it exist then? To benefit from "Vantage" / "Squeeze", moreso from the latter.
  
  Except there are a few "tiny" issues:
  
  1. You need to have already drafted those cards before obtaining "Boat Anchor", since as it was proven above, the card is wortheless by itself in a vacuum
     
  2. Concentration can be obtained easier and in same amounts through other means, and is not required to be of high numbers immediately pretty much ever, so the value of drawing "Boat Anchor" with "Vantage" is highly questionable
     
  3. In theory yeah, you can get crazy "Squeeze" value by drawing "Boat Anchor" with it, especially with "Boosted Squeeze" and "Heavy Anchor" upgrades, if you can even manage to upgrade the latter. In practice, you'll get immensely frustrated trying to set this up, because most importantly of all:
     
  4. You're not guaranteed to draw "Boat Anchor" with "Vantage" / "Squeeze". Not to mention repeatedly. And you can't even discard it to potentially draw it again on the same turn either, as Rook features 0 discard options. All of which means this card is a permanent hand clutter in 100% of cases.

So the card is insanely bad in a vacuum with an overpriced effect, and at the same time it's hard to get value from because it's best usage relies on having one-two specific cards for it already present in your deck beforehand and high, high RNG for you to draw this using said cards, so in the end it clutters your hand permanently.
But wait, this card is even worse than you think!
Because I've described to you every possible way of this card's use and every single one of them is virtually useless or achievable only by some miracle, this card's very existence is a detriment to you! By being so useless and niche that you have negative reasons to draft it, alongside cluttering your hand it clutters your ENTIRE card draft pool! Meaning you could've gotten some other better options presented to you instead of having this card appear in your drafts! In fact it would be better if this card just never existed at all in the first place!

Upgrades: The only viable one is Heavy. What an utter trash excuse of a card this is. The best upgrade of this card is to remove it from existence.

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: One of the best cards in the game for Rook. It's essentially the only one that removes debuffs for him, and it removes all of them immediately while also healing you on top. To give you a grasp on how good this is: rids you of Exposed, Wound, Impair, gets rid of both Fralx's incredibly strong debuffs, can be used to remove debuffs of cards such as "Dugout", synergises with Temporary Power making it permanent... the list just goes on and on. It's even good by the virtue of Fatigue existing because that is also a debuff! And removing it absolutely helps continue upgrading other cards you may need to in the same combat! Needless to say: grab this card as soon as you see it

Upgrades: Always Enhanced. The other option is really weird: you want to target yourself with this card pretty much always, but then you damage yourself and the healing this has doesn't compensate for it at all, even worse if you're running Overcharge. Trying to damage enemies with this card's upgrade rids them of useful debuffs that they may have, which is terrible.

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: At worst, a different "Lifeline". At best, gives two Charge/Overcharge depending on charge. Unreliable since requires only attack cards to be drawn for the effect to take place, so meh.

Upgrades: No preference

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak defense card. Counter is a bad effect, so not that worth taking, despite the ease of acquiring it.

Upgrades: Stoned

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The effect is alright and it is a nice card to have as a one-of

Upgrades: Both are good, but I prefer the Overcharged one

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Starts as a generic basic defense card at first but unlike Hunker Down this gives Concentration. Rook really wants Concentration, as it increases his minimum damage output which has great synergy with Overcharge in turn. This card is taken to particularly synergise with "Telegraph" and give yourself that Concentration number boost. Also decent post upgrade even by itself, although the defense is a bit lacking

Upgrades: More defense if you're using it as standalone, and more concentration if you rely on Telegraph synergy, but honestly both are good no matter what

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Fantastic card. Applying debuffs individually as Rook is a weak strategy, but indirectly applying several of them at once is powerful in its own right, with such potential debuffs being Impair, Wound and especially Scanned. This card proves that there are no bad debuffs for Rook in the game, as it can apply any of them and they all have their own use. Applying debuffs indirectly means you're not spending both precious actions and deck slots for weak cards that apply them either.

Unfortunately, this card is inconsistent in terms of which exact debuffs you're getting at the time of casting this. It may as well happen that you're going to get a collection of absolutely unneeded ones. Still, because this is the only card in the game that acts as an indirect debuff applier, and because there are no useless debuffs for Rook that he can apply, the card is worth taking for any of his decks.

Upgrades: The card has an upgrade dilemma. While Pale is useful to save an action during a turn, as has been discussed above you still may not be able to get the debuffs that would be actually useful to you, but the following downside of the other upgrade won't be applicable either. Increasing the amount of debuff cards to five through the Boosted upgrade increases the chance you roll better debuffs, and in fact, you will get the debuffs you want almost every single time. But be wary that there is a huge downside to doing this: you are going to clutter your hand. Because Rook has absolutely no discard effects in combat, the cards generated by "Psionic Storm" will remain in your hand until the end of turn, meaning your hand size is essentially reduced by half (even more with a specific graft). In a thin deck that can draw cards for itself, this is horrible, as you will highly likely overdraw and discard important cards you would want to cast, especially considering "Psionic Storm" can get you the Scanned debuff, which means you will clutter your hand even faster and most importantly every single turn. As such I have no preference in recommending any of this card's upgrades. For the sake of fun, I almost always pick the Boosted upgrade.

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Alright draw and the debuff by itself has decent utility. Mark acts as a sort of "delayed Overcharge" that you can proc when you'd like, but you need to attack the same target several times for this to happen, and I'd rather get Charge / Overcharge instantly. Can be taken instead of some generic "Lifeline".

Upgrades: Maintained, since you use this card to get Fully Charged or Overcharged, not for drawing, which could be achieved with other cards.

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Max defense you're getting from this varies from 3 to 12 before upgrade, and from 5 to 20 after. But the problem is whenever you are targeted even by one guy, you're going to be taking way more damage than this card will ever provide you. Not to mention if an opponent's attack has several instances which this card does not account for. As such it is a very weak defense card.

Upgrades: The only viable one is Stone and it still does not make the card worth taking

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Only somewhat usable in conjunction with "Brain Tick", but even then it becomes an overpriced defense since you're spending two actions for 10 defense without any additional effect. If you don't have "Brain Tick", this card is trash. Gambling on whether you are going to be targeted or not with the debuff of not being able to defend yourself is a horrible idea for a glass cannon

Upgrades: For Rook, Exposed is no better than having no defense at all, so Stone only.

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: 8 and 12 max defense before and after upgrade respectively are good values but the majority of the time you won't have full charge to obtain max defense values, and every single missing charge makes this card that much weaker, not to mention you'd have to obtain said charge again turn after turn if you're planning on casting this repeatedly for defense, meaning you won't have charge for other things you may have wanted instead.

Upgrades: Stone, but having inconsistent defense values is still weak. For the other upgrade, see "Loader"

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: There's a lot to talk about with this particular card. Surprisingly lot for a card with such a simple, yet an irreplaceable effect.

First, let's take a good look at it without the "Burnout" keyword for now. As an experienced player, I can confidently make a statement that "Tight Spot" is a defense benchmark for any defense card in the game. Eight defense is enough to repel a lot of attacks, especially early game, but not always enough by just itself to be able to defend against an attack, especially several. Still, it is a great defense number by itself and is more than enough for a singular card to provide. Tight spot is a framework for evaluating any defense card in the game: one action should yield / is worth it to spend on 8 defense at the bare minimum

All that means that this card is worth taking it for the defense alone. But now notice that it has "Burnout" in it, which dramatically affects your decision making during combat. You see, before you are able to upgrade this, by taking this card you are running the risk of... unintentionally getting rid of it. If you cannot for any reason spend at least an action casting this during the time it is in your hands, you will lose the card until the end of combat permanently. The important note here is that this can happen either deliberately, because you decided to do so, or in most cases and what causes trouble for you for the majority of the time: inadvertently. Noone said you won't run into a scenario of drawing it via some effect after you've exhausted your last action, which means if it is your primary defense card in a deck, you are losing it that turn then and there. Moreover, the Burnout keyword demands you to use this every single time, especially if you are planning on upgrading it ASAP, despite the combat scenario you're in, whether you need it on said turn or not. The earlier (and if, at all) it Burnouts, the more you may regret about letting it go on your following turns, because most of the time, you need this card. Despite this, unless the combat is approaching its end, simply spend an action casting it, even if it would be at the cost of making combat slower for you. Better be safe than sorry!

Upgrades: By default, Stable. Now that you've familiarized yourself with the downside of Burnout on this card, by eliminating it completely you are presented with a great defense that will always be there even if you don't need it on any given turn.

That being said, the other upgrade is situationally better than Stable one. You can absolutely have several "Tight Spot"s in your deck, and in fact I highly encourage you to have 2 copies at most. While one of them should absolutely have the Stable upgrade, the other can have the Stone one. Several reasons for this: you may come across another defense option in your drafts and having two non-expendable "Tight Spot"s already would be an unnecessary defense overkill and deck clutter. The "Stone Tight Spot" will help provide better defense alongside the Stable one, and after you get your hands on a better defense card, you can simply let the Stone upgrade Burnout in combat naturally and voila, you still have better defense options while having at least one "Tight Spot" that would help to keep you safe and you've thinned your deck on the fly

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Healing 8 at max doesn't really matter, this is a very meh value card, especially since you can use it only once per battle. Also with the Burnout keyword you may not even get max heal numbers at all should you decide to cast something else.

Upgrades: Whatever, this is bad

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Giga-weak effect, this won't help you defend at all. A much better version of this card, the one it dreams to be, a fixed "Fixed" (pun intended) is present in Smith's card pool, named "Tracer".

Upgrades: Who cares? All options are still trash

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Even though it's a "Boosted Hunker Down" that provides Overcharge, if you cannot get your hands on "Tight Spot", after the upgrade can serve as a substitute which exchanges one defense for Overcharge

Upgrades: By default Stone, since Rook wants more defense, but if you managed to get a better defense card inbetween upgrading this card, go for Surging

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card needs ASAP upgrading. 10 defense for two actions is a bit overpriced but the effect this has makes it easy to get Fully Charged / Overcharge and keep it going too while keeping you relatively safe at the same time. Overcharge gets halved at the end of your turn only, so any Overcharge that you get with this will stay at the start of your turn in full force. The Stone upgrade option makes it worth for the defense alone as 2 actions give you 1 defense less than two "Tight Spot"s, but exchange it for a great effect. What's more, due to its cost has nice synergy with "Vantage" / "Squeeze"

Upgrades: Stone by default and if you don't have "Telegraph". Otherwise, Induction can help provide great Overcharge numbers.

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: This makes running "Release Valve" justifiable. Mostly used for Empty Rook to amplify defense numbers. Fully Charged Rook doesn't need this at all.

Upgrades: Pale

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card is garbage indeed! Your deck needs to be thin, not cluttered with a lot of cards. As such, this card is terrible. Only use in dailies.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak attack card. Best synergy this has is with "Boat Anchor" but it's just outclassed by Overcharge and cards that let you attack several times

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1-/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: Incredibly little burn stacks makes this completely univable to ever consider taking. Its upgrades don't make it better

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: Relies on cards that spend charges, which are weak as has been discussed. While the card itself is stronger in terms of damage than most in Rook's arsenal, it doesn't make or break combat for him. Gaining one charge at the start of every turn means this always costs minimum 2 before the upgrade. Absolutely useless outside of decks where no charge expending cards are present.

Upgrades: Very Cheap

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: While Concentration is a stat that Rook wants, this card doesn't make it easy to obtain, due to the requirement of being Empty. However, the effect is better than the majority of Empty keyword containing attack cards, so it's not that bad

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This is a different Hair Trigger variant. And that card is your #1 priority to remove as fast as possible from your deck. Nothing different with this one either.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You might think that spending two actions for some multiple target damage and defense is good value but in reality this card is just bad. The maximum number of opponents on the battlefield against you at any given time is 4 (excluding Flead Queen boss), so at best you're getting 8 defense which is good but it gets way lower the less people you're fighting, which is a way more common combat scenario than fighting 4 at once, and because of that the AoE effect becomes unnecessary and the card clutters your hand due to the same very reason when in its place could have been a better single-target combat card instead. The damage numbers aren't impressive either and it does not give you any other value for its high cost

Upgrades: Promoted sounds better but it doesn't make the card worth picking anyway

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Trash Campaign-Specific Generic

Commentary: "Shovel" is only available during Rook's campaign, and you get to choose it at the start of your run with the other option being "Blacklist".

Terrible single-time in combat value for a self-contradictory card. Single time use of either 10 damage with 0 defense at empty or 8 defense with 2 damage at being fully charged is whatever, not to mention in-between these values it's even worse. Why would anyone pick this when "Blacklist" is just a times better option?

Upgrades: There are none available

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: Weak card for applying Burn, especially since you don't always have full charge to make use of its effect in full. Sear is better.

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: If you couldn't get your hands on better Burn cards, this one is a great standalone substitute, provided you have Concentration sources. What's interesting is that this card is better than the primary Burn cards in applying a lot of Burn, but only provided you can stack Concentration a lot fast. Naturally by itself does nothing.

Upgrades: Whatever, but since you want it in Burn Rook decks Boosted is a little better to apply as much Burn as possible, and it also makes itself non-reliant on Concentration should you not have any

Rating: 0/5
Usage: In conjunction with "Psionic Storm"

Commentary: Not worth using. Debuffs that Rook can apply are way more useful than removing them for this attack, which isn't even highly damaging anyway. Because the damage does not increase the more instances of the same debuff is applied on an enemy, this only considers debuffs individually, making the damage this card deals low. Moreover it is highly reliant on you having debuff cards in the first place, and it's best usage is alongside "Psionic Storm", which still doesn't make this card worth period, especially considering its cost

Upgrades: Whatever, don't use

Rating: 0/5
Usage: In conjunction with "Psionic Storm"

Commentary: See "Cataclysm"

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 0/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Weak damage, weak effect. "Oscillator" is a direct upgrade to this.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: You don't need a slightly better "Charged Blast"

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic / Empty Rook

Commentary: While the effect is definitely solid, it requires having Concentration sources in the first place. Although, considering this card requires you to only have any amount of Concentration without any additional condition is good by itself. Despite this, Fully Charged Rook doesn't need this at all, since his cards provide times more damage than just stacking Wound on somebody repeatedly with this one, so essentially it can only find its best use in Empty Rook decks as a crutch for damage, because by himself Empty Rook doesn't have much in the first place.

Upgrades: Enhanced

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Almost always will have weak damage numbers. Highly reliant on debuff-applying cards outside of Rook's basic deck to be able to deal even less than average damage.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: This card yields the biggest amount of instant Counter in the game, but only on the condition that you hit max damage on this, which if you want to do at least semi-often can only be achieved via Concentration. Unfortunately Counter mechanic is weak in this game, moreso on Rook, with whom being a glass cannon already it is not a preference to be targeted at all, and even if you manage to get 16+ Counter with this it wouldn't make much difference had you been using better cards, which could help you achieve more damage at an easier condition than this card alone

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: Impair is one of the best debuffs in the game, but this one can realistically only be used in Empty Rook decks if you want to apply it often, outside of which it is wortheless. But even then it only applies a single point of Impair, and the damage is weak. Gaining one charge at the start of every turn hinders you from using the Empty keyword often, which doesn't work in this card's favor either

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: A weak attack card, despite being sometimes free

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: The card applies the most Ricochet amount possible, and gets only better the more Power / Overcharge Rook has. Unfortunately Rook doesn't necessarily need Ricochet at all to perform, and the effect is best utilized in a form of being passively applied through "Psionic Storm". As such, this card is unneeded, not to mention it does not achieve anything else

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: An alternative to "Chimney". "Cauterize" applies Scorched at an easier condition than "Chimney", however adding no additional burn stacks. Great substitute pick if you can't get your hands on the aforementioned card, but have other sources of Burn in your deck already.

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: This card gains solid bonus damage as you ramp up Overcharge and it would even be worth using if only it didn't spend your entire Overcharge on cast. Overcharge is a highly valuable stat for Rook which you do not want to spend on this card's attack, not even a single point

Upgrades: Still not worth using regardless of upgrade

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Empty Rook

Commentary: Just a more damaging version of "Mirrored Blast", provided you meet the condition. Best utilized in Empty Rook decks, because otherwise this is a version of default Blast that's wortheless. You gain Charge from this regardless of being Empty or not.

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Empty Rook / Generic

Commentary: By itself the card's pseudo-Concentration effect is bad, even in Empty decks, because if you have any Concentration in the first place as you should this card's effect is nullified and there are better ones to pick instead

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 1/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: Burn Rook doesn't need this at all, despite what the effect implies where it wants to be. The other Burn-focused card that utilizes charge is "Firestorm" and not only it is bad and unneeded, using several cards to achieve one effect is a huge waste of actions when other Burn cards exist that stack Burn by themselves alone.

Upgrades: Whatever

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Great effect. Despite being nothing impressive on the damage part before the upgrade and providing no immediate effect upon cast, suspending the card draw until next turn is quite helpful, as it allows you to draw more cards at once, which means more potential to draw useful cards that you actually need. Fully Charged Rook loves this since it lets him draw more 0-cost cards, and in thin decks casting this card repeatedly can let you cycle through your entire deck easily throughout combat turns

Upgrades: Both are good and you can pick any, but more often than not I go for more damage

Rating: 4+/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: Firstly, the card is worth taking because after the upgrade you are presented with an option of making it cost 0, which is useful by itself and is even better if you didn't get "Loaded Blast", as it can act as a directly better substitute. And secondly, having max damage at full charge is fantastic, as it allows you to bypass reliance on Concentration as your Overcharge numbers stack up, which means this card will always fully utilize whatever additional damage you stack at max. Upgrade this card ASAP.

Upgrades: Always Pale

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Generic / Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: Probably the easiest AoE condition to obtain. It's alright but despite this I rarely pick this card, as in a good deck Rook's cards wreck opponents individually, not to mention attacking several enemies at once sometimes can be detrimental.

Upgrades: No preference

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook / Generic

Commentary: Provided you meet the condition, which is already easy by itself and is even easier in Fully Charged Rook decks, this card acts as a better "Mirrored Blast".

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Burn Rook

Commentary: As a one-of in Burn Decks it can help out, especially in conjunction with Wildfire, but before the upgrade it essentially does nothing but help maintain some Burn, and not only that but since you're better off just stacking Burn on one target, Scorched is no exception, so doing it on multiple people is a bit of a waste here. Considering its heavy cost, not worth picking the majority of the time

Upgrades: Enhanced always

Rating: 2+/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: Costly, but with a great effect attached to it. Essentially this says "You do not lose your current Overcharge at the end of your turn". To get the full effect from this card, you need to have more actions through grafts/items to utilise the value doubling your Overcharge gives you. Despite this, the card can be lacking in usage due to how tough it is to upgrade manually as most of the time it is not worth it to cast at low Overcharge which is the majority of the time. Still, strong situationally, and is worth considering.

Upgrades: Loaded is better. More often than not you just cannot or do not want to cast this for one reason or another, but drawing an additional card alongside it makes this card not clutter your deck and hand at all, as now it complements and supports your draws

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook / Generic

Commentary: Damage is solid but 2 actions for it isn't worth it and costing three valuable Overcharge points for the effect to make it free? There are cards with way more lenient conditions for costing 0, for example Jolt doesn't require any Overcharge to be spent while providing comparable damage to this card. Unless you are literally choking on Overcharge, this is not worth picking for the majority of the time.

Upgrades: Pale, to soothen the drawback of losing Overcharge

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Slightly more damaging "Mirrored Blast" at a slight condition

Upgrades: Boosted

Rating: 2-/5
Usage: Niche

Commentary: Unnecessary to have. Most of Rook's debuffs are useful when they are present on enemies, and removing a random one to make this card pseudo-free is highly questionable, especially if you are risking to remove an important one such as Impair or Scanned, which can be highly detrimential. Seldom this card can actually provide an extra action for free, if it is discounted by a graft.

Upgrades: Tall

Rating: 3+/5
Usage: Generic / Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: Before the upgrade functions as a slightly better Blast, since by the nature of its requirement of having any Concentration raises up its minimum damage, lessening the damage range. But post upgrade, it really hurts as you stack some Concentration alongside Overcharge. As such, Fully Charged Rook loves this.

Upgrades: In Fully Charged Rook decks, Focused Gunslinger is cracked: additional damage instance while having both of the best buffs for Rook in the game is nothing to scoff at, and the downside of a single point max damage substitution doesn't matter at all.

Rating: 4/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: For Fully Charged Rook, this is essentially a free card 90% of the time. Unfortunately is held back a little by the fact that it does not always cost zero, especially during early game combats. A single upgraded "Shock Therapy" makes this card essentially immediately free.

Upgrades: Boosted, as in Fully Charged Rook decks it is easy to make this cost nothing

Rating: 1+/5
Usage: Empty Rook / Generic

Commentary: Useless for Fully Charged Rook, somewhat alright in Empty Rook decks, as it is the only other card he can get Wound reliably from, with the other being "Zero". The problem is this card always costs 2 actions which is quite heavy on combat tempo for Rook, and you probably won't get all the Wound you can during a turn due to having some Charge, and/or won't make use of all Wound points this applies since you're more than likely going to either skip a turn after casting this or simply use a single attack / defense card afterwards. Drawing this and not having enough actions to cast or needing to cast something else instead means this card is going to clutter your hand a lot. As mentioned already, "Zero" can apply Wound at a cheaper cost while not eating up all of your action points, which are highly valuable.

Upgrades: Enhanced

Rating: 3-/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: In terms of damage and AoE effect, this card is alright by itself. Mostly utilised against multiple-enemy bosses that spawn enemies, and when it cost nothing while dealing solid damage it really helps. Technically works in Empty Rook but in reality this card performs better in Fully Charged Rook decks due to higher AoE damage due to Overcharge. If you are slow on gaining any charge this card won't be as useful to you, as the cost will far outweigh the AoE damage. Additionally, losing all charge can yield positive effects that trigger when charge is lost or when you become fully empty. Held back quite a bit because it does not cost 0 often times, cluttering your hand as such, and because unless you're cautious you may misuse this a little, in case you didn't cast your zero-cost-at-full-charge cards beforehand.

Upgrades: Pale. Costing less by itself helps you preserve some charge to reach full charge state faster and make this cost 0 faster.

Rating: 2/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Really greedy card. Best use I can think of outside of Fully Overcharged Rook, who doesn't need this card period, is in a hybrid deck that gets some Overcharge but doesn't utilise it fully. Converting Overcharge into Wound points so that you don't waste Overcharge at the end of your turn seems reasonable, but most of the time it is completely unneded. You'd rather preserve whatever Overcharge is left to keep stacking it next turn, especially since some cards also benefit from you having even a single point. Even if you have a lot of Overcharge to spare, why would you need Wound then instead of Overcharge when your cards deal way more damage with it instead? Not to mention drawing this without any Overcharge is no better than having default Blast at all times

Upgrades: Promoted

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: A way better kick than the default one. Helps out early game when you have little Overcharge amounts and poor default defense options while being not that heavy on Overcharge consumption and is quite efficient applying two Impair for a single Overcharge point. Somewhat loses its value once you get solid non-basic defense options and becomes completely irrelevant once you get your hands on "Telegraph".

Upgrades: Boosted. Four Impair points at max is more than enough, don't make this card suck out more Overcharge.

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: At first this is a basic "Blast" that can attack several times depending on Charge amount. After you upgrade this, becomes a great utility card to either replenish your hand or gain more Overcharge on top. Although to be fair, upgraded "Striker" can grant you same Overcharge amount you would get with this card at max charge easier and without messing up your charge. Also keep in mind this card relies on presence of other cards that amplifiy its multiple attack effect in the first place, and it is greedy for Charge points, sometimes making its effect not that significant. Although stacking Overcharge / Concentration makes this card damage hard

Upgrades: Both are good

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Fantastic Overcharge generating card, albeit somewhat slow in ramping up Overcharge before the upgrade, so do it ASAP. Meeting threshold requirement is very easy not just by itself but by having very few points of Concentration. Moreover this card makes it easier to trigger itself once you actually acquire some Overcharge with it as the damage range increases. Alongside some more Concentration numbers, gaining Overcharge with "Striker" becomes eventually guaranteed

Upgrades: Boosted. Meeting threshold requirement is easy, and getting four Overcharge essentially for free is busted

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Burn Rook Primary

Commentary: This is the main card for Burn Rook decks. "Chimney" and "Sear" are the two cards that you should be running in conjunction with each other and casting in combat constantly, as their effects make up your entire damage output. It is the only card in the game that unlike other cards that also feature Burn is not reliant on set numbers of Burn applied in its effect description, making it highly efficient for stacking a lot Burn instantly, which is what you want. Keep in mind that Concentration and especially Overcharge amplifiy this card too which means it highly synergises with cards that grant you those buffs, allowing you to apply a lot of Burn on an enemy immediately, which as was mentioned is tremendously easier than doing it with the rest of cards that feature Burn but only apply a flat amount. You can be lacking any other card in Burn builds, but you must have this card in order to function properly in combat as Burn Rook

Upgrades: Tall. Increasing damage range is way better since Concentration exists

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Burn Rook Primary

Commentary: This is another one of main Burn Rook cards. "Chimney and Sear" are the two cards that you should be running in conjunction with each other and casting in combat constantly, as their effects make up your entire damage output. While it doesn't apply much Burn by itself, the reason you take this card is because it applies Scorched which is the most important debuff that you must-have in order for Burn Rook to be functional, as it makes your Burn stacks not decay as fast as they would without it. Not only that, by itself it's highly efficient: not only it can deal solid damage by itself, it applies some burn and may apply Scorched on top too, all at one action. You really need at least one Concentration card in your deck for this to trigger consistently, but once you do stacking a lot of Burn on an opponent becomes a piece of cake.

Upgrades: Always Boosted. You are interested in applying as many Burn stacks as you can, especially considering this can also apply Scorched, and alongside "Sear" stacking Burn becomes a piece of cake

Rating: 5/5
Usage: Fully Charged Rook

Commentary: The potential of this card can only fully be utilised in Fully Charged Rook decks. Attacking three times at base already makes it worth to spend Overcharge on this card and what's also great about it is that Overcharge is deducted only after you finish attacking with this card, meaning you're not losing on damage. After you upgrade this and as you stack some Overcharge along with some Concentration, which Fully Charged Rook always wants, attacking more than once amplifies your damage by that much, making this card incredibly damaging, so much so that using this card alone on some enemies while having enough of those buffs makes them just straight up die from full health

Upgrades: Always Boosted

Rating: 3/5
Usage: Burn Rook / Infinite Combo

Commentary: In Burn Rook decks, this is a pseudo-free card that can help you get more bang for your buck after the upgrade, especially if drawn several times, which is quite, quite useful. But it also has a niche application after you upgrade this, featuring an Infinite Combo in a very thin deck featuring "Lifeline", Scanned debuff, any card that applies Burn and any card that uses Charge (which you already have at base in the form of "Hair Trigger").

You can probably guess what it does, but the gist of it is as follows: while having no Charge and at least one stack of Scanned + Burn on an enemy, cast "Lifeline", draw an upgraded "Char" and a card that expends charge, cast "Char", cast a card that uses Charge, draw "Lifeline" again, repeat infinitely

Upgrades: Two actions are times more important to have no matter the reason you're picking this card

Rating: 5+/5
Usage: Generic

Commentary: Oh okay lmao. This is the best attack card in the game for Rook period.
So usually Overcharge is acquired through some requirement, you either have to gain Charge at full charge which is not always the case, or trigger "Striker" card's Threshold for example... but this card just straight up gives it to you at no condition. That is INVALUABLE. How cracked is this card that it is viable to consider having 2-3 of these in your deck alone? Also insane is the fact that, considering this gains bonus damage as Overcharge ramps up, "Shock Therapy" improves itself with each cast, since it is not reliant on Concentration to gain damage at minimum, and apart from gaining bonus damage from Overcharge, also benefits from Overcharge itself giving it more damage.
Needless to say, any Rook deck can utilise this card, any card that benefits from Overcharge is improved with this card and there is no downside to picking it ever. Fully Charged Rook LOVES this. Truly, the most busted card Rook has in his arsenal.

Upgrades: Always Enhanced, any additional Overcharge is fantastic and is times more valuable than some small damage increase on a single card

Annoying?: A Little

Commentary: Though in theory you're taking 10 damage (5 if you're running the Basic Training perk), it is spread across many turns. Moreover if you draw this card while having defense applied, you're not taking any damage. Main annoyance is that it takes up a card draw. It's just a little prick card, nothing else.

Annoying?: No, useful at times actually

Commentary: Easy to progress and sometimes helps remove debuffs at little cost of health. You can even deliberately choose to not upgrade it any further and keep it for later combat scenarios or for certain bosses that apply nasty debuffs e.g. Fralx

Annoying?: No

Commentary: In 99% of cases, you either take no damage, or very little to begin with.

Annoying?: No or Highly

Commentary: Having two power does not justify the amount of damage you can freely deal to yourself with this card in hand, and every single card you play counts towards it. Thankfully you can progress through this iteration at no cost.

Annoying?: Yes

Commentary: Self-impair is annoying, especially since when you gain the debuff is uncontrollable, and you need to spend an action to get rid of this card so it doesn't impair you repeatedly. At least it replaces itself with other cards

Annoyance: Somewhat

Commentary: If you can draw some cards beforehand this may actually be useful instead. Though it targets at random, so you may lose a good card you wanted to cast. Otherwise, if you just need to get through this card, simply cast it at the end of your turn.

Annoying?: Somewhat

Commentary: Generally speaking this card isn't a hindrance, however because you do not control which cards you will draw with this, it can technically remove your only good defense option or a card that you needed, so be careful and check your draw pile beforehand and weigh the risks

Annoying?: Highly

Commentary: Taking 8 damage is tough, especially for temporary power, and especially since you need to cast this several times before it moves on. As such you need to apply some defense to yourself before casting this, but a lot of the time you need that defense to protect you from the incoming attack, so in those frequent cases this card just takes up a draw slot ridding you of actual cards. "Brain Tick" makes this card a bit better since it can help make this power permanent and soothe the damage a bit.
Noteworthy mention, this card does not expend upon being cast, so it is possible to upgrade it in one combat.

Annoying?: Somewhat

Commentary: Gives a bit more temporary power than Branch, and at the same time has slightly more manageable penalty for doing so. Strategically cast it either at the end of your turn if you want to simply progress through it or calculate which two cards you are going to use last during your turn and cast this beforehand.

Annoying?: Highly

Commentary: You need to prepare yourself before casting this and apply some defense beforehand, 10 damage at once is no joke. But a lot of the time you need that defense to protect you from the incoming attack, so in those frequent cases this card just takes up a draw slot ridding you of actual cards. The redeeming quality of this card is that the Power it gives is permanent, and you can progress through the hatching during the same combat as it does not Expend upon cast.

Annoying?: Insanely

Commentary: The bonus this gives is ok. But it does not in any way compensate for applying a whopping FOUR WOUND POINTS to yourself immediately. You have to be highly optimistic to not expect taking any attacks during your next couple of turns, and those attacks will hurt a lot for an already glass cannon Rook who craves defense points. As such this card will take card draw slots a lot of the time. Unless you are going to finish off your opponents on the same turn, or you have something that removes debuffs, do not cast this recklessly.

Annoying?: Yes, because takes up card draw slots if you cannot use it

Commentary: The Final Form of Combat Parasite. And it is...quite meh. In campaign, this is alright, since Burrs appear somewhat frequent, the removal of Burrs with this is instant and then it expends. However, non-boss Burrs aren't a threat to begin with period and the 3 max health bonus is just complimentary. In brawl, it is only ever useful for the final boss. So overall, it is more annoying than useful, since if you cannot cast it for the combat you're in, it just sits in your hand doing nothing but taking up a card slot that could have an actual card instead.

Annoying?: Yes

Commentary: This will definitely screw your action curve, and moreso over the course of the negotiation you're in since it does not expend upon draw. Thankfully the effect is only until the end of turn.

Annoying?: Somewhat

Commentary: It could be worse if it didn't expend upon draw. As it stands, it will mess up one of your turns and then remove itself from current negotiation.

Annoying?: Somewhat or Highly

Commentary: You absolutely need to cast it immediately (or discard alternatively) as soon as you get it in your hand, then it is not a problem. If you keep it or draw it inadvertently without any actions left however, it gives you its copy which does not help you progress the hatching process further (only the original does) and then you'll have to waste more actions removing its copies. Don't let it spread and just cast it ASAP.

Annoying?: Somewhat

Commentary: It can absolutely destroy or finish off a small argument that you need or make you take chip damage to your core argument. If your arguments are protected already, the effect is unnoticeable

Annoying?: A little

Commentary: You can cast it at the end of your turn, or with the last card in hand that you don't mind expending, or just by itself if you have no cards left in hand. Casting it with several cards risks expending a card you actually need. Cast your important cards beforehand so that it does not expend anything that's worthy.

Annoying?: No, useful at times

Commentary: In 99% of cases you take 0 damage. Even if you have some unwanted status cards in your deck, the resolve lost can be easily compensated or ignored

Note that the resolve loss inflicted by this card cannot be prevented, it pierces through your Composure directly taking resolve from your core argument.

Annoying?: No, useful at times

Commentary: You don't control what you draw with this, however I never had an issue with the cards it made me expend, probably because you can choose when you cast the copies, and moreover they are free. If you draw a card that cannot be played, a.k.a has no cost, you just get yourself a free copy of said card which is great

Annoying?: No

Commentary: In 99% of cases, you either take no damage, or very little to begin with.

Note that the resolve loss inflicted by this card cannot be prevented, it pierces through your Composure directly taking resolve from your core argument.

Annoying?: No or Somewhat

Commentary: I just never use this card's bonus. It is free to progress and the two additional damage this gives is not that strong, and you can lose a bit of resolve while casting cheap cards with this.

Note that the resolve loss inflicted by this card cannot be prevented, it pierces through your Composure directly taking resolve from your core argument.

Annoying?: Highly

Commentary: The effect is great, but it comes at a cost of damaging you while giving Vulnerability on top of that, and sometimes you cannot afford taking even 4 damage directly to your core argument. I've had situations where a couple resolve have been the difference between losing and winning, so cast this carefully. It does not expend from your hand upon being cast, so it's possible to progress this in the same negotiation should you decide to cast it several times.

Note that the resolve loss inflicted by this card cannot be prevented, it pierces through your Composure directly taking resolve from your core argument.

Annoying?: Insanely

Commentary: This is a card you should be highly, highly wary about when casting. You are definitely going to lose some resolve with this, but you do not control how many points exactly. Depending on your deck's contents, It could be as little as none, or it could be as high as FIFTEEN. Realistically speaking - around 6-7 resolve. As such this card is dangerous to cast recklessly. No matter what you have in your deck, because you need to cast this card several times before it upgrades, but even casting it once can cost you the resolve you may will have needed to stay in a negotiation, I highly advise you to only use it either before winning the negotiation, or while having max or close to max resolve.

Note that the resolve loss inflicted by this card cannot be prevented, it pierces through your Composure directly taking resolve from your core argument.

Annoying?: No. Extremely useful.

Commentary: The Final Form of Negotiation Parasite. And it is absolutely great. Essentially, this is a free three-point resolve heal every single turn, provided you can defend this and your core argument, and provided it actually damages any argument it targets (damaging enemy composure doesn't trigger the heal). As such it relieves you of the frequent need to drink at the bar and you can just heal with this alone. Copying this card's argument is crazy good. A great argument well-worth the effort it takes to eventually get it.

Some run examples could already be seen in Burn and Fully Charged Rook sections.

The video below will provide you with various deck examples that you can use to beat Prestige 7 with Rook, featuring all combat archetypes like Fully Charged Rook, Empty Rook, Burn Rook, as well as many negotiation variants. Feel free to pause the video to see which cards I've been using with which upgrades.

Again, credit to qwerty吃小庄 for making the Custom Deck mod so I could test various archetypes without the need to RNG them at the start every time: https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2234233408&searchtext=custom

Naturally, as could be observed from the video, I myself do not always beat every single run with Rook, despite the knowledge I posess on this game (I also abandoned a few runs in case I knew my decks weren't getting any good). But hey, this is how it is on the highest difficulty in the game with him! Sometimes you just lose due to bad Boss / Draft RNG and there's not much you could've done to prevent that. Makes Rook that much more enjoyable, fun to play and experiment with.

https://youtu.be/Qbyh3TnypY8

Thank you for reading this guide! It's been a great pleasure writing it and hopefully you've found it quite detailed and useful to apply for your own gameplay sessions. If you liked the guide and/or found it helpful, feel free and take a short time to leave a rating and/or a comment if you'd like.

I'm not sure if I would make a full Smith guide. I sort of stopped playing Griftlands as much, but I wanted to finish this one for Rook (which took me a really long time). Perhaps I will simply make a video discussing Smith's cards in the future instead of making these lengthy text guidelines. For now, I'm just happy I could finish two big guides on Sal and Rook.

By the way if you haven't seen my Sal guide for Prestige 7, you can take a look at it here:

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2908381036
That's pretty much it! And remember, most important of all, have fun with the game!

[Update] Smith guide has been published! Check it out here:
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3138869225